To feel a sense of accomplishment from going outside to walk the dog, or mustering up the courage get your nails done. The effort it takes some days to get out bed. How you get ready to go out but then can’t leave the house. Or how one day you wake up and you can’t go into work. And you can’t call cause you don’t know what to say. You lose jobs to it. You ignore the texts from everyone. They go from “Hey, where are you? to genuine concern and worry, until they turn to anger. And then you feel even worse. They say things like “Are you okay? this isn’t like you”.

But it is like me.

It’s just sometimes it’s worse. Sometimes I can contain it better and put it to the side; sometimes it eats me up whole and leaves behind a fragile body curled up in the bed staring at the wall.